WAVY out of Virginia covered a protest conducted by over a dozen people to call upon the Accomack County Attorney’s decision not to prosecute PETA employees who stole Wilbur Cerate’s dog. This the result of the local station’s news report of PETA employees caught on video footage taking Cerate’s dog off of his property and driving away in a marked vehicle identifying the organization. Cerate pointed out that the same women who took his dog came back a few days later with fruit basket, apologized since they had euthanized his god and offered compensation.

A press release from the Accomack County Attorney reveals some more interesting facts that shed more light on the case. In a statement released by his office reported by WAVY, County Attorney Gary Agar outlines the reasons why he decided not to prosecute the PETA employees:

In the statement, Agar said “the facts appear to be that PETA was asked to help” when an adjacent landowner “complained to PETA that the abandoned and stray dogs attacked his livestock, injured his milking cow, killed a goat, and terrorized his rabbits.”

The statement continued, “the van was clearly marked PETA, and in broad daylight, arrived, gathering up what abandoned stray dogs and cats could be gathered. Among the animals gathered was the Chihuahua of Mr. Cerate. Unfortunately, the Chihuahua wore no collar, no license, no rabies tag, nothing whatsoever to indicate the dog was other than a stray or abandoned dog.”

Agar’s office also said the animals were not euthanized in Accomack County, so his jurisdiction can’t make a determination on that part of the issue.

I am not an attorney so I am not familiar with the law, but I would have thought that if Cerate could establish his ownership of the dog via witness testimony that would be a good enough basis for charges to be filed. None the less, this entire affair gives a small peak into the practice of one of America’s most prominent so-called animal rights groups and its conduct toward domesticated animals.

As it turns out, PETA has euthanized thousands of animals in its care for sometime. The reason for this is that the group opposes domestic ownership of animals and will kill animals brought into the group’s facilities since they do not trust people to properly care for an animal. Just like PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk once said: It would be lovely if we stopped this notion of pets altogether.